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Location: Virginia Water, Surrey
Event: 14 April 2013
Report: Andy Whitehouse/Snowdon Sports
Second category junior rider Alice Barnes (Scott Contessa-Epic) showed her promise when she sprinted to victory in Twickenham CC’s Dace Peck Memorial Road Race in Surrey, round two of the Women’s Team Series.
The young rider crossed the line a second ahead of the rest of the breakaway after a strong sprint, which comes after her sixth spot in the opening round of the Team Series on Good Friday.
Corinne Hall (Matrix Fitness) took second spot, while the winner of last year’s Dave Peck Memorial, Natalie Creswick (Team Mulebar) completed the podium in third.
The race was split into two sections, with the riders completing 13 laps of the Valley End circuit before coming onto a shorter circuit for five laps and heading to the finish at Staple Hill, Chobham Common.
There were numerous small attacks and probes off the front of the bunch in the first few laps, but they were quickly reeled back in by an alert bunch.
But after 30 minutes the first break got clear, with Louise Mahe, Jessie Walker and Clemence Copie attacking off the front.
The leaders were swelled by Maryka Sennema, Amy Gornall, Lydia Boylan and Hannah Barnes, but their lead rarely went above 15-20 seconds as the bunch chased hard.
One by one the leaders dropped off, until with two laps of the large circuit left they were all back together and heading for the finishing circuit.
Another break got clear, and with most of the big teams having a rider in there it was allowed to quickly get around 40 seconds up the road, with Creswick driving hard on the front.
With two laps left their lead had grown to more than two minutes over the bunch, and by the bell it had gone over three minutes.
Creswick was still setting the pace, but in the sprint it was Alice Barnes who came through the middle to take the win.
“I’ve never done an open road race before so it was pretty exciting to get a first a win on it as a second cat junior,” said race winner Alice Barnes.
“I’ve been on an Olympic Development Programme mountain bike training camp all week in Thornbridge. It was really difficult, I was the only girl on it so it prepared me quite well.
“My legs were alright, I struggled quite a bit when my legs had seized but in the sprint I managed to ride through that to the end.
“Early on there was a breakaway with one of my team mates and my sister was in it as well. We were just trying to control the race. Matrix didn’t have a rider in it so we were just trying to control them chasing back. Then I got into a breakaway, got a bit of a gap going and managed to get away.
“I’ve got a stage race in Holland next week then in two weeks I’ve got the national mountain bike cross country race in the sunshine in Cornwall!”
Results:
1 Alice Barnes (Scott Contessa-Epic) 2:24:17
2 Corinne Hall (Matrix Fitness) @ 1sec
3 Natalie Creswick (Team Mulebar)
4 Lydia Boylan (Team CTC)
5 Alexie Shaw (Le Filles RT)
6 Karla Boddy (MG Maxifuel)
7 Amy Hill (Abergavenny RC)
8 Anna Reid (Zappi’s Ladies Team) all @ same time
9 Emily Bagnall (WyndyMilla) @ 7sec
10 Charline Joiner (MG Maxifuel) @ 2:22
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British Cycling would like to thank the organising team, officials and everyone else who helped promote this event. Our sport could not exist without the hundreds of people, many of them unpaid volunteers, who put in many hours of hard work running events, activities and clubs.
